"Assaults continue to be a real concern to us, they're the one crime category that's continued to increase really over the last eight or nine years," he said.

"There's a couple of reasons for that, we think alcohol-fuelled violence continues to be a real problem right across the state and again I heard about that here, particularly in and around Traralgon and the licensed precincts there but in other areas as well."

The Latrobe City Mayor, Darrell White, agrees that more needs to be done to limit alcohol-fuelled violence.

"It's a problem or a topic that has been with us since time immemorial but certainly it's important that we do have our minds addressing the issue on an ongoing basis to really try and tweak the rules of the game out there," he said.